2018

IIMA conducted JICA’s Co-creation Program: Bond Market Development in ASEAN Countries (II)

As a training program under Japan International Cooperation Agency’s (JICA’s) ODA technical assistance, IIMA, in association with Japan International Cooperation Center (JICE), conducted a two-week course on the development of the bond market from December 7 to 21, 2018 for 7 participants from the relevant monetary authorities of six countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Vietnam, and Iraq.

The program provided lectures covering Japan’s history of the financial and bond market, the role of securities companies and credit rating agencies, related laws and regulations, settlement systems. Some new lectures related to corporate bond issuing processes, FinTech, and others were also provided. The lecturers, aside from JICA and IIMA staff, were from Ministry of Finance, Financial Services Agency, Japan Securities Dealers Association, Japan Credit Rating Agency, Ltd, University of Tokyo, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co., Ltd., and MUFG Bank, Ltd. Active opinions and ideas were exchanged with the members of the participating countries during the program.

We sincerely hope that the participants would apply the lessons learned here to their own country’s bond market development policies.

The IIMA held a seminar titled “Supply Side Structural Reform and the New Economy in China”.

On August 29, 2018, the IIMA held a seminar where Professor Yusaku Nishimura of China’s University of International Business and Economics in Beijing was the lecturer. Prof. Nishimura has been living in Beijing for 15 years, received his Doctor of Economics from one of China’s National Key University, the University of International Business and Economics in 2010 and was recruited by the same university as the first Japanese full-time lecturer. From 2018 he has been a professor at the Institute of International Economy of the university and is also a visiting researcher at Bank of Japan’s Beijing Representative Office. In the seminar Prof. Nishimura provided an easy to understand explanation of the policy trend that led the Chinese Economy to the “Supply Side Structural Reform” within the “New Normal” and the contents of the reform. He also gave comments, including a first-hand report, on the fast growing China’s “New Economy” and later followed by an active Q&A session.

Researchers of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations visited IIMA

On July 26, 2018, headed by Mr. Fu Mengzi, Vice President, five members of the Institute of Japan Studies and the Institute of World Economic Studies visited the IIMA. Both institutes belong to China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a government-run think tank. We had a frank exchange of opinions on the important and timely themes including assessment of the Chinese foreign exchange rate system, prospect of internationalization of the yuan (RMB), and ways to promote financial cooperation between China and Japan.

IIMA members participated in a meeting “International Conference of Commercial Bank Economists/ ICCBE.”

From July 10 to 13, 2018, IIMA members participated in a meeting “International Conference of Commercial Bank Economists/ ICCBE” held in New York. Mr. Mitsuru Yaguchi, General Manager and Chief Economist reported Japanese economy, and Mr. Koji Sakuma, Visiting Research Fellow / Professor of Kyoto Tachibana University reported labor market reform in Japan. ICCBE is a meeting of financial economists founded in 1937 in order to discuss global economic issues and is held in different cities every year by rotation. They had many hot issues to discuss this year including challenges for central banks and monetary policy, labor markets and inflation, banking and financial markets issues in Europe, trade war, application of machine learning and big data.

IIMA received a visit from Chinese researchers of governmental think tanks and university scholars

On April 19, 2018, the IIMA had a visit from Mr. Ruan Zongze, Executive Vice President of China Institute of International Studies, a think tank under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, and Mr. Zhang Yansheng, Chief Research Fellow of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a governmental think tank, and two scholars from Peking University, accompanied by officials of China’s foreign ministry. They represented a mission that the Embassy of China in Japan invited to Japan to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and China. They and the economists of the IIMA exchanged their views on the major issues relating to the recent international financial affairs. Specifically they held a deep discussion focusing on Japan’s monetary and foreign exchange policies after the global financial crisis, comparison of the Japanese monetary policy taken after the burst of the bubbles and that of the U.S. taken after the subprime crisis, the tapering policy of the U.S. from a quantitative monetary easing and its impact on Japan and China, and the possibility of the recent trade frictions leading to a next financial crisis.

The IIMA held a seminar titled “The Outlook of the Asian Economy and the Role of the Asian Development Bank”

On March 28, 2018, the IIMA had invited Mr. Takehiko Nakao, President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a speaker in a seminar titled “The Outlook of the Asian Economy and the Role of the Asian Development Bank”. The IIMA invited members of foreign embassies in Tokyo, non-Japanese financial institution/corporations, universities and others. In the seminar Mr. Nakao explained about the recent remarkable growth of Asia, including China, and also ADB’s contribution to this growth in the past, present and future. The seminar was followed by a very active Q&A session.

※The Lecture Materials (English).